Saturday 4 May 2013

Stepford wives/ Sucides/ Mary Gauthier sublime/

"Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it offff." My husband raises an eyebrow as he flips the radio off switch,  mid sentence, slicing into the words " suicidal ideation".  Relentless, depressing, predictable.  I knew it was coming of course, the abortion Bill is in the drafting stage. We have the barest most pared down provisions  at last, three tiny cowardly faltering steps for womankind. One obstetrician's say so where a woman's life is in the balance, two obstetricians' say so when it is merely at risk,  one obstetrician  and two psychiatrists where there is a risk/threat  of suicide.

Nowhere in there will you find mention or requirement for choice or  contribution  from the woman requiring the abortion. The discussion is largely on the part of  minority catholic crazies,  politicians peddling the party line, the traditional  line, the line to re election, and  the occasional real life actual  woman  struggling to be heard.  Possibly one of the eleven women per day going to or back from the UK for an abortion. But not so much. These women don't count. They are not the ones we legislate for.  It's for the others. All the pregnant Stepford wives. You know them?

And then there are the suicides. The meagre provisions on offer hang in the balance, on account of all the suicidal pregnant  women, particularly those many many who  might be pretending.  And besides and in fact and indeed abortion you know is not a remedy for the suicidally  ideated, an assertion trotted out  witlessly,  ad nauseum.  Is  Suicide now  defined as  a symptom of mental illness? Are we unable to acknowledge the possibility of suicide as existential choice? The victim in the X case was not mentally ill, she was raped and asserted  to be suicidal if forced to carry her rapist's child. This was a fundamental existential crisis, leading to a choice of suicide, and so it was recognized to be by the Supreme court and by every rational  civilized  person in this country.,

Rape, the prospect of carrying a non viable fetus, a disastrously unplanned pregnancy, any of these might well lead a woman to such an existential crisis.  We carry a child for nine months deliberately intelligently, a herculean labour in fact. We do not do it lightly. We do not do it forcibly. People choose suicide in intolerable situations That is a fact. No one  can dictate  what is existentially possible for another. The  current  debate is a fudge and  an insult to women who must make real choices.

Later on, when I think its safe to come out, Bishop someone or other is faithfully quoted on the news .... abortion can never ....not a  treatment for suicide ideation .... must never be allowed....... put at risk   innocent life of the unborn.....!!!! I ask my husband to take the radio down stairs and put in in the garden. Why oh why would anyone quote the catholic clergy now? What place have they here? They  don't really  care for children do they? We know they have two modes when it comes to innocence and vulnerability, no exceptions,; they prey, or they cover for up their pervert priests. We  know they would be doing it still, if they had  not been exposed, dehorned, dragged kicking and  screaming, into the light.  So hey, not concern for children, for morality then,  A power play, stoopid.

"It's' ok honey, s'ok,  they're  gone" my husband turns the radio up up up  for  Mary Gauthier. Devine existentialist  Mary Gauthier  come among us to the land of Stepford  for a week,  and now she's on the radio.  He pulls me down beside him  on the back door step, and we listen under the tentative barely warming sun.

                          Now that same frown's in my mirror/ I got my daddy's blood inside my veins.
                 Fish swim/  birds fly/ Daddies yell/ Mamas cry/ old men sit and think /I drink.

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